Fuminori Ando
thought he would never be able to wear traditional Japanese summer sandals. The design of his artificial leg didn’t allow it.

Then the 41-year-old, who lost his right leg below the knee soon after he was born, heard about SHC Design Inc., a startup that is using three-dimensional printing to produce custom-made polymer limbs. Mr. Ando, who has a day job at an internet company, started working part time for SHC Design helping with patents, and it crafted him a free prosthetic leg designed to accommodate the sandal. The artificial limb includes a specially curved heel, as well as a space for the sandal’s strap between the big and second toes.

“It would have cost me a lot if I made something like this in a regular way,” said Mr. Ando, wearing a pair of sandals color-coordinated with his Japanese-style summer outfit. Typically handmade from multiple materials, a prosthetic limb costs an average of $4,200 in Japan, according to health-ministry data. SHC Design Chief Operating Officer
Yutaka Tokushima
said he expects his company’s printer will be able to produce a prosthetic leg for about $100.

In the case of prostheses, the other advance was an elastic polymer that is soft to the touch and suitable for medical devices. Developed by rubber maker
JSR Corp.
, which has teamed up with SHC Design on this project, the polymer is fed into a printer specially designed to output soft materials stably. Guided by a template that SHC Design’s software creates from a scan of the customer’s healthier leg and the desired footwear, the printer sprays out a prosthetic leg.

Insurance generally pays for a prosthetic limb for everyday use, but the high cost of standard artificial legs makes it expensive for wearers to get additional ones specialized for activities such as swimming or skiing, or for particular shoes.

“There’s a perception out there that [prosthetics] users shouldn’t need a lot of options,” said Mr. Ando. He once bought an expensive artificial leg to wear while swimming, he said, but stopped using it because it was too heavy and didn’t look very good.

In a poor country like the Philippines, SHC Design’s technology could fill a more fundamental need. Nearly 350,000 people there need prosthetic legs, and more than 90% can’t get one because of the cost and lack of specialists to treat them, according to Japan International Cooperation Agency, an aid arm of the government that provided funding for trials in the Philippines of the 3-D limb printer. More than 100,000 Filipinos whose disabilities prevent them from working could get jobs if supplied with an artificial limb, the agency said.

“I wanted to provide my product to those really in need,” said SHC Design Chief Executive
Tsuneo Masuda,
who started the company after working at a medical-equipment maker for 26 years.

SHC Design, which has received some subsidies from the Japanese government, plans to begin selling its system—the 3-D printer and software—as soon as next April in the Philippines and Japan, said operating chief Mr. Tokushima. It will cost about $2,000, he said. A scanner is also required and must be purchased from another provider.

The company believes it would be the first to offer a self-contained 3-D printing system for prosthetic limbs, according to Mr. Tokushima, and it plans to seek patents for the printer and software.
All Nippon Airways Co.
is also on board in a research capacity as it explores ways to give passengers with prosthetic limbs easier routes through airport security, where the standard models set off alarms.

Larger prosthetics companies are also looking at 3-D printing. Ottobock, a prosthetics maker based in Germany, distributes 3-D-printed leg covers made by San Francisco-based UNYQ Design Inc. that allow users to conceal the mechanical parts. Prosthetics maker Össur hf. in Reykjavik, Iceland, uses 3-D printing to make prototypes and some parts for its microprocessor-controlled knee, according to research-and-development director
Magnús Oddsson.

“With further development of the technology, this method will be used more,” he added.

Tom Fise,
executive director of the American Orthotic & Prosthetic Association, said he isn’t aware of any other fully printed legs as close to market as SHC Design’s.

He said he sees potential durability issues with polymer legs compared with standard ones, which are made of materials such as titanium and carbon fiber. An Ottobock official said the company hasn’t used 3-D printing to manufacture an entire prosthesis because it doesn’t think the current technology could produce one good for three to five years of use.

Mr. Tokushima of SHC Design said he hasn’t seen durability problems in trials so far—and notes that if a 3-D-printed leg wears out, a new one can be made quickly and relatively cheaply using the stored data.